


Son, Brother, Father, and a whole mess of weird cousins

by Pidgey



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Discussion of Abortion, M/M, Mentions of terminal illness, Mpreg
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-26
Updated: 2017-09-26
Packaged: 2019-01-05 20:08:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12196524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pidgey/pseuds/Pidgey
Summary: The Guardians have a guest ravager, everyone has to decide what makes a family and Rocket is surprising good at advice.WIP





	Son, Brother, Father, and a whole mess of weird cousins

“We’re being hailed!” Comes Rockets gruff call from the pilot’s chair of the Milano. The crew drop everything and crowd in behind the racoon. Peter put’s a hand on the back of Rocket’s chair as he leans forward to peer out at the small, rusty looking craft. It can’t be…

“Looks like ravagers.” Gamora notes.

“Want me to blow them out of the sky?” Rocket grins reaching for the controls.

Peter leaps in and grabs the paw before it can reach its destination. “No! What the _hell_ is wrong with you? Answer the hail. Let’s see what they want.”

Rocket rolls his eyes and clicks to open the communication. The ravager shuttle isn’t even updated enough to have video; just a crappy transport vessel rather than a well maintained, battle ready m-ship.

“Who are you and what the hell do you want?” Rocket snarls.

“I need to talk to Quill.” Comes the voice, staticky from a shitty, old, ravager comm but clearly upset and very familiar.

“Kraglin?” Peter blurts incredulously.

“Peter!” Bursts across the comm in a relieved exhale of breath.

“What the hell.” The human murmurs. Gamora shoots him a worried look as he leans into the comms again.

“Krags. What is it? What do you want? Where’s Yondu!” He demands.

“Peter... Just let me in. I’ll explain. It’s just me.” Kraglin sounds exhausted and closer to pleading than Peter has ever heard any ravager be.

Quill nods to Rocket who is sceptical but doesn’t question his captain, his friend. He runs through the docking procedure to bring the smaller ravager ship into contact with the Milano. Peter hurries to the docking port trailed by an on guard and armed Gamora and a curious but wary Drax. The three stand together, providing a formidable force.  It seems unnecessary though as the door slides open to reveal a haggard looking Kraglin. He’s in his ravager garb as per usual but there’s dark rings around his eyes. The Xandarian is pale, a bluish tint to his features indicating he hasn’t been planet-side or been using the UV beds that keep species like his and Peter’s healthy in a while. He looks defeated and exhausted but when he sets eyes on Peter he smiles wearily.

“Heyyyyy brat.” He grins and stumbles forward into the Milano, seemingly oblivious to the armed warriors flanking the Terran. Peter catches him and Kraglin presses his forehead against the younger man’s shoulder, arms hanging limply by his sides. If it were anyone else, it might seem like a hug-but they are a ravager first-mate and a guardian of the fricken galaxy. It is not a hug. Definitely not.

After a long moment of definitely-not-hugging a confused Quill pulls back, hands on Kraglin’s shoulders and looking at him searchingly.

“What the heck happened?”

“You have med facs?” Kraglin croaks. Why would he need the medical facility?

“Basics.” Peter is getting worried now, “Is Yondu… Is he… and that’s why?”

Kraglin shakes his head so vigorously Peter is surprised he doesn’t fall over, “He ain’t dead. He’s fine.”

“Peter,” Gamora says gently, resting a hand on Peter’s nearest forearm, “I think he needs to sleep. He can explain himself after some rest and some food.”

She then glares at Kraglin suddenly and sharply, “As long as there’s no one after us?”

“Naww. No one knows where ya are. Jus’ me.”

“And how did you?” Gamora doesn’t twitch towards her knife but it’s a near thing.

Kraglin’s grin broadens showing off his sharpened canines and silver filled teeth, “Bout the third time I fixed the music thing I put a tracker in it. Jus’ in case.”

Peter’s eyes widen in shock and he drops his hands, “And Yondu doesn’t know?! And you never used it before?!”

Instead of answering Kraglin sways dangerously. Peter catches him by the arms to steady him. Gamora raises he eyes at Peter in a ‘told you so’ way before extricating Kraglin from Peter’s grasp and leading him towards the living quarters. Drax shrugs and wanders away, the encounter had bored him and, in his view, nothing of note had just happened. Peter throws up his arms in frustration and stomps back to the cockpit before dropping dramatically into the co-pilot’s chair.

“What the hell was that?” Rocket demands.

“I am Groot!” Agrees the sprout happily from his pot on the dash. He twitches his newly formed legs as he had been for a while. They weren’t ready to be pulled from the soil but Groot often seemed absolutely enthralled by them.

“Search me.” Peter blows long breath out, “Says he needs medical but nothing seems wrong far as I can tell.”

“Why’d he come here? He must’ve passed a dozen stations with fully stocked, state a’ the art hospitals. What an idiot.” Rocket shakes his head.

“Dunno. Maybe decided to leave Yondu and needing med facs is just a cover story.” Peter muses flippantly.

Rocket laughs uproariously and forcefully, holding his sides and wiping tears, “You… you make it sound... sound like the big blue asshole is banging that guy.”

Peter glares at Rocket dangerously, “And?”

Rocket stops laughing abruptly, “Wait, seriously?”

“Yeah, long as I can remember.”

“Huh… Never thought ravagers… huh. How ‘bout that.”

“Yeah,” Peter blows out a long breath, “how about that.”

* * *

 

Kraglin is sitting on the medical bed slash examination table, bare feet dangling, hands awkwardly lumped together in his lap, wearing just his long-sleeved, grey undershirt and a borrowed pair of Peter’s sleep pants. The shirt is worn thin with several small holes. Combined with the absence of his leathers, boots and weapons it makes Kraglin look impossible small. He looks better for a night's sleep but still pale and blue and exhausted.

“Does she have to be here?” Kraglin asks nervously, pressing his hands between his knees to stop himself from wringing them. Gamora looks at him curiously which he interprets as anger.

Kraglin throws up his hands in surrender, “No offence! Jus’… Gonna be hard enough to tell one person.”

“Gamora knows the most about this stuff, more than just ‘stitch it shut and hope you don’t die’ anyway. She picked out and can use all the equipment too. I can go though?” Peter offers.

Kraglin looks like Peter has kicked him in the gut for just a second and Peter curses himself.

 “Yeah, you don’t gotta stay.” Kraglin says, lifting his chin and squaring his shoulders a bit in a false show of bravado.

“Changed my mind. I’m curious. You want me to go, you gotta make me. My ship, my rules.” Peter says flippantly and flops onto the chair by the bed.

“Fuck you brat!” Kraglin sneers but visibly relaxes a fraction.

“So I know what to look for, what is the actual problem?” Gamora says abruptly, losing patience. Peter casts her a look that cries “Bedside manner! We’ve talked about this!” but she simply raises a brow back.

“I think…” Kraglin takes a deep breath, “IthinkImightbepregnant!”

“Holy shit!” Peter exclaims, at the same time Gamora breathes out, “What?”

“I… I get sick every time I eat. And I feel like shit, all the time. I grabbed a blood test out of our med fac and my blood… there’s fuck all cobalt in it.”

“What does that mean?” Peter frowns.

“Yondu’s Centaurian.” Gamora explains, but on seeing Peter’s blank expression continues, “His blood runs on cobalt like yours runs on iron. If Kraglin has none it might mean…”

“That either I’m dying or I got a little blue passenger sucking it all straight outta my blood.” Kraglin finishes for her glumly. Peter looks at him with a sympathetic look tinged with worry. Gamora simply grabs a blood test off a nearby tray and rams it against Kraglin’s arm, straight through his sleeve. He shouts in surprise.

“Hey, give a guy some warning why don’t’cha?” He growls indignantly.

“You whine like a newly hatched Skrulling.” Gamora says bluntly as she watches the small tube on the device fill with dark-but not as dark as it should be-Xandarian blood.

Kraglin remembers shoving that same blood test against his arm himself a few days before. The thing-a white plasticky tube about an inch in diameter-shooting a prick into his arm and filling a smaller tube on the front with blood. He sat, determinedly not looking at it for the 5 minutes it takes to run. The longest 5 minutes of his life. He was tired, trying to keep up appearances in front of the guys and not appear weak whilst feeling like death warmed up was killing him, hopefully not literally. He nodded off for a bit and starts awake in a panic. Grabbing the test and flipping it over to see the colour panel and comparing it against the Xandarian page of the medical book he’d nicked from Doc. Column one… Yellow… so immunes system ok… Column two… blue… none of the common blood born viruses… Column 3… Red… Extremely low cobalt-causes for Xandarians include severe anaemia, recommend screening for blood cancer. Shit.

Kraglin sits back. Shit. He’s dying. He feels strangely numb. His first thought is Yondu will need a new first-mate. His second… no one can know. He’ll find a replacement first mate and then disappear planet side to die in the sunlight. Alone. Shouldn’t take more than a few weeks to train someone up. Make sure they were loyal and could take care of Yondu, have his back. No one would have to know what happened and they’d think he’d just run. Better that way.

Kraglin is broken out of his reverie by Gamora making a thoughtful noise. He looks up to see Gamora reading the display.

“So?” he says. Trying to keep the nervousness out of his voice.

“Nothing we didn’t already know.”

“What’d you stab me for then?” Kraglin whines, rubbing at the injection site.

“To be sure.” Gamora says pleasantly, “Plus, I need it for the other tests.”

She twists the device and the tube of blood detaches. Kraglin watches with interest. He had no idea it could do that. She slips the tube into a small machine on a counter and a small yellow light begins to blink.

“Strip,” she orders and turns back.

“What???” Kraglin squeaks, crossing his arms and tucking his hands in his armpits like he is protecting his virtue.

“Take off your shirt.” She says slowly, enunciating carefully.

Kraglin glances sideways at Peter and looks back up at Gamora. He sighs, defeated and pulls his shirt up over his head in a laboured movement, as if he dreads his face clearing the shirt and seeing theirs. He drops the shirt next to him, moves his hands to the side to clutch at the bed in direct defiance of the instinct to cross them across himself. He looks up slowly and sees Gamora and Peter exchange a look. That look that contains multitude of unspoken information. He’s exchanged similar looks with Yondu, captain and first mate, more. Kraglin’s eyes water and he blinks angrily.

The undershirt had been loose, comfortable, concealing. Now, bare, under the bright lights, Kraglin felt exposed and he hated it. Peter looks him over. He’d seen the older man shirtless before, consequence of living in close quarters. Kraglin had always been slim, but muscular, abs, arms. Peter raked his eyes over the man on the bed. His arms were thin, muscle lost, his collar bone prominent and skin as pallid as his face. But his stomach. His stomach was smooth and slightly round.

The silence hangs. Kraglin stares Peter down. Quill’s eyes are wide, his mouth dry.

“Yeah.” Kraglin admits softly.

Gamora finally breaks the silence. She steps forwards and says softly, “I’m going to examine you. I don’t have an ultrasound though.”

Kraglin sits still and silent while she listens to his heart, prods and pokes around his belly. He sits still and silent while the small blood machine beeps and Gamora check the readout. He sits still and silent while she reads out what he already knew but didn’t want to know.

But when Peter smears a hand over his own face, covering his mouth for a brief moment before forcing a smile and saying “Look…” in a light-hearted tone Kraglin stands, the rest of Quills statement drowned out by the pulse in the Xandarian’s ears. He punches the wall of the medical room so hard he leaves a bloody smear on the clean wall and lets out a wail of a scream. He sinks to the floor, seeing only his hands, one bloody, and the floor blurring through what must have been tears. He feels gentle hands pull him against a warm body. Too many hands for just Quill. Four arms surround him and he sits. Numb. And eventually lets the world fade to black.

* * *

They don’t mention the medbay incident. The next day is tense, the day after less so and the third day felt completely normal. Peter gave Kraglin a list of chores and maintenance tasks a mile long and strict orders to finish them all. Peter pretended like he cared if they got finished. Kraglin grumble and complained and pretended he wasn’t grateful. And Gamora administered shots, vitamin drinks and once, notably, an IV of fluids, in complete silence and ruthless efficiency. They all know it can’t last. But for the first time in weeks Kraglin feels close to okay.

Kraglin is working on a cooling system panel in the wall, grumbling about Peter’s shoddy maintenance and how if it gets any hotter his balls will literally melt when it all comes to a head. The little tree in its little pot were nearby and the little creature sat on a box next to him cleaning pieces of a gun that, assembled, must have been half of the racoon’s size. Groot watches Kraglin work. The damn sprout had been watching him all morning

“I am Groot!” Groot shouts, waving an arm. It comes out as a squeak.

“No, not… He’s pregnant. Preg. Nant.” Rocket explains with fond exasperation.

“I am Groot?”

“It means he’s gonna have a baby.”

“I am Groot. I am Grooot.”

“What do you mean, where’s it gonna come from? It’s gonna come from him. That’s what pregnant means. How have you been around mammals for so long and not know this stuff?”

“I am Groot.” Groot crosses his arms.

“No. I’m not pregnant! Why would I be pregnant? I can’t even be pregnant!” Rocket crows angrily, gesturing as he talks.

“I am Groot.” Groot explains.

Rocket sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose, “No. Not all mammals are pregnant and yes it’s hard to tell sometimes but you should still know what pregnant means!”

“STOP SAYING PREGNANT!” Kraglin shouts, throwing the wrench down forcefully. It crashes into the other tools on the bench and silence rings through the ship louder than the clatter itself. Rocket looks up at the man but doesn’t say anything, lip curled slightly. Kraglin snatches a rag and wipes the oil from his hands in short jerky motions before throwing it down on the tools and storming off, casting a sneer over his shoulder. Groot watches him go with wide eyes. Rocket watches him go with a cold, expressionless stare.

“Pregnant means that Xandarian is screwed.” Rocket whistles lowly.

“I am Groot.” Groot agrees, not fully understanding.

“You said it buddy.” Rocket shrugs.

**Author's Note:**

> This was something fun to do cuz I love these characters and I love Kraglin/Yondu. But I would also like to improve. Constructive feedback is most welcome.  
> (P.S no idea when the next update will be. Don't expect speed. Sorry)


End file.
